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Forums - Discs & Movies - Musicals Are they dead, Again?

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I have watched Moulin Rouge countless times and appreciate its artistry more with each viewing. I also loved "Chicago" even though I initially had little interest in seeing it. The musical isn't dead because "Rent" and "Phantom of the Opera" were box office disappointments. They were just badly executed films. I hope that Andrew Lloyd Weber follows through with his plans to produce the film version of his musical,"Sunset Boulevard" starring Glenn Close and Ewan McGregor.

Moulin Rouge was enjoyable. Chicago was awful. And the poor Phantom of the Opera was reduced to being a two dimensional GQ model in a mask saddled with a chorus that was unintelligible. If your story is driven by what the chorus is singing, please make sure we can understand them. Shirley Temple had better diction in musical numbers when she was 4! Musicals have been gasping with death rattle ever since Hollywood screwed over Judy Garland and yanked her from Annie Get Your Gun. The only place where the musical is truly alive and well is at Disney. Belle's opening number in Beauty and the Beast was great, and for my money the best written song of the 90's was Pocahontas' Colors of the Wind.

I don't think the problem is that they are musicals, per se. I don't think Chicago suceeded because it was a musical. It was an incredible movie as well. Phantom of the Opera was abyssmal. I haven't seen the other two, but I don't think either was thought highly of by critics.

I don't think there was a conserted effort to revive the musical with Chicago. It was just timing. Someone just thought it would be a good idea to exploit the stage shows popularity and the gamble paid off for them. The only modern example of a musical that worked for me was Moulin Rouge but even that film tended to polarise people. So I think in the current climate, a hit musical is always only ever going to be a one off followed by those that try to latch on to it and usually fail miserably. I think the golden age of the musical was specific to a particular time in the world (depression and the advent of sound) and as such, has gone for good.

Over the last year or so "Hollywood" gave us 3 Muicals. All 3 were made after "Chicago". "Chicago" grossed $170,000,000 in North America. "Hollywood" Saw that money could be made. So 3 of "Broadways" biggest shows were then made. They were "Phantom of the Opera", "Rent", and "The Producers". None of them were Box-office Mega hits. So does this mean the musicals are dead again? I hope not. e In fact were getting the musical "Sunset Blvd" in the future. However will You go see it? I think "Hollywood" should of made "Miss Sagion" movie before "Sunset Blvd". The musical "Sunset" will be hard to pull off. Not only because its an adaption of a "Broadway Play", the play was based on the original movie "Sunset Blvd" and not only will people compare to the play ( for those who saw it) it also has the ghost of the original movie "Sunset Blvd". over its head as well. This was something "The Producers" also suffred from -"The Original MOvie".